This gorgeous young Swede has a whole flock of admiring young females, and some of the older ladies think he’s pretty hot too. On the petite side, like all Swedish Flower Hens, David may not be the beefiest man in the barnyard but the girls don’t care. They’re in love with his big brown eyes, his suggestive swagger, and his long shiny feathers.

Ffff

ffff

Alsty may be young, but she is proving herself to be one serious momma. After successfully raising 18 chicks, 10 of her own hatchlings plus an extra 8 incubator babies, and kicking them all to the curb at the six week mark, she has gone broody again.

With what I am learning is her usual efficient decisiveness, she hunkered down on Thursday morning and indicated with a growl that she was ready to bake more eggs. [Insert joke about the fact she is a Teutonic breed 😊]

I gave her some polish n’ Silkie mix eggs, plus entrusted her with my very special *last* six Swedish Flower eggs for this season. I know my Swede eggs are safe with my little Austrian chicken.

More chicks hatching means the older hatches get shuffled along to larger quarters. Each hatch starts out inside in a playpen with a large heat plate. After a week or two, they go outside to an insulated heated brooder for two weeks. Then it is on to a closed coop with a heating pad, with daytime access to an outside pen. At six weeks, they can keep themselves warm, and they move to an unheated pen in the hen hotel. From there they get sorted, the boys go over the creek to the bachelor pen, the girls go into the Polish and Silkie coop, and most are sold. The Polish and Silkies are my kindest birds, and I know the little ones are safe there.
Two Silkie hens are raising broods, and their chicks are about the same age as a batch of six week olds I moved in on Sunday. Tonight I noticed those two moms are letting all the new chicks sleep in their shared nest. Interesting, usually mother hens chase other chicks away. Silkies are such great moms!